Syllabus Level II

Syntax and reading comprehension

Week
1

1 -3

Subject
Introduction class:
Rules and
conditions,
methodology,
evaluation
agreement,
schedule
explanation.
Identifying
previous
knowledge
(Daily routines,
introducing
people,
vocabulary
about hobbies,
etc).
This part is mostly to
explore our new
students and their
capabilities so the
development of the
class will be your total
choice.
Parts of speech:
Nouns, verbs,
pronouns
(mostly its
function),
adjectives.
Adverbs.
o Manner,
frequenc
y, place,
time and
purpose.
Determinative
s.
Prepositions.
Conjunctions.
Interjections.

Resources and activities

Forums, conversations, activities, games.

Reading out loud (not only descriptive or

informative texts, the proposal goes
along with literature so tales, poems,
even music can be used for this).
The students will try to identify the
different parts of speech learnt during
the class.
It can be done also with Who wants to
be a millionaire, there are many online
resources to create our own powerpoints
with the template and theme of this TV
Show.
According to the possible age of our
students I would suggest authors like Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle (Detective stories),
Rudyard Kipling (Just so stories for little
children, The Jungle Book), Oscar Wilde
(The picture of Dorian Grey), Stephen
King, Amelie Nothomb even Charles
Bukowski. We can use some fragments of

Syllabus Level II
Syntax and reading comprehension
these books and enjoy them together in
class. Also, there are many letters of
famous authors to their lovers that would
be fun to read in class.
Also, reading or working based on world
news (mostly sports and cultural ones),
would be very positive considering that
they are always looking information
about their favorite singers, actors and
athletes.
When it comes to speaking, role playing
can be a great choice to use the new
vocabulary learnt in class, maybe acting
like tales characters or famous people
around the world.
4

Sentences, phrases
and clauses:
Definitions and
differences.

This part can be done with multiple

resources like the readings that we used
before on class, allowing the students to
identify the different sentences, phrases
and clauses so they can compare them
with the ones that they build or create
inside the classroom.
Also, taking some news headlines in
Spanish and ask the students to translate
them and identify if they are sentences,
phrases or clauses would be good to
improve their vocabulary.

Simple, compound
and complex
sentences.
Present simple,
present progressive.1

These sessions will require a little bit

more involvement for the students,
because after learning the differences
between the sentences they can will
build them and talk about them.
To do so we can use topics such as
nationalities, hobbies, sports, musical
genres, places around the university,
food, culture or family. Basically anything
that comes to our mind that would be

1 La idea es que los tiempos verbales se trabajen como temas secundarios ya

que el nfasis del nivel va a ser en sintaxis y no en gramtica.

Syllabus Level II
Syntax and reading comprehension
interesting for them.

Independent and
dependent clauses
Past simple, past
continuous.

7-8

Irregular verbs

7-8

Compound and
complex sentences:
Coordinating and
Subordinating
conjunctions

8 (Just 2
hours)
9

Mid Term Test

10-11

Wh- Questions, how

much/how many.

12

Textual typologies

13-14
(First two
hours)

Microteaching
project

Connectors
Future: Will/Going to.

I think that might be interesting to use

different sentences that are mistaken in
any way, so they can identify the wrong
words and change them for the right
ones.
That could be really helpful when it
comes to understand the functions of all
the parts of speech and the differences
between independent and dependent
clauses.
Using the previous knowledges about
past tenses, the students will start to use
irregular verbs in the classroom. Who
wants to be a millionaire could be useful
for this as well.
We will ask the students for situations in
their daily routines and they will build
sentences using coordinating and
subordinating conjunctions according to
the sentence type. This can be done
through forums, debates or games.
Written test.
The students will create short stories
using connectors. This can be
challenging and we can do a contest with
the best stories motivating them to write
and express their own interests.
The students are going to develop a Tv
show (It can be a sitcom, news or funny
things like SNL) they are going to record
this and show it to the group.
We will show the different textual
typologies to the students, once they
learn how to differentiate them, they are
going to build by couples one of their
choice and read it out loud to the class.
Poems, tales, informative, descriptive
texts are welcome.
Our students are going to choose one of
the subjects developed in class, and they
are going to expose them to the rest of
the group. They will have 10-15 minutes
for that.

Syllabus Level II
Syntax and reading comprehension
14-15

Vocabulary
Activities

16

Final exam

We will review most of the vocabulary

worked along the semester to help the
students with their final exam
performance. The activities are your total
choice, however I would recommend to
use games and fun activities, so they can
relax a little bit before their test.
Oral test

IMPORTANT: I think that is really necessary to consider our students

interests, mostly when it comes to the texts and the activities developed in
class, so I would suggest that you explore that in the first session so you can
make the right choice for them. For me, is really important to build a strong link
between me and my students with that, they can feel comfortable in class and
it wouldnt be a burden to be inside it.

Some useful links:

http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/overview.html
http://busyteacher.org/search.html?q=parts+of+speech
http://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/the-parts-of-speech

http://www.english-grammar-revolution.com/what-is-a-noun.html

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/definitions.htm
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/clause-phrase-andsentence/sentence-structure

https://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/word-order/positive

Syllabus Level II
Syntax and reading comprehension
http://www.shertonenglish.com/resources/es/questions.php

http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/questionopen.html

http://www.eslgamesplus.com/question-words-what-where-who-why-when-which-howgrammar-activity/
http://www.primarygames.com/langarts/simplesentences/

https://jeopardylabs.com/play/simple-compound-complex-sentences

http://www.easystream.net/lessonquest/language/lessons/compoundsentences.html

http://blogs.scholastic.com/files/simple-and-compound-sentences-1.pdf

http://www.societyforqualityeducation.org/stairway-to-grammar/INTRO_STGPart4.pdf

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/sentences/compound-sentences_COMPO.pdf

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/sentences/compound-sentences2.pdf

https://www.superteacherworksheets.com/sentences/writing-compound-sentences.pdf